This project is concerned with the relationship between epilepsy and the cognitive functioning of epileptic children. There are two specific goals: (a) to develop a series of simple behavioral tasks which will sensitively measure specific deficits in attention, and (2) to examine the relationship between "subclinical" electrographic seizures (EGS) and attentional deficits. The tasks will be developed so they can be used as clinical tools in monitoring patients' progress and as research tools in the examination of epilepsy and mental functioning. Three experimental tasks will be used. Each is a reaction time task and will be designed to measure one of three separable components of attention, i.e., alertness, selective attention, and focused attention (e.g., Posner and Snyder, 1975). The subjects will be epileptic children from the Children's Neuropsychiatric Unit who have frequent, generalized paroxysms or EGS that are generally unaccompanied by observable seizures. Each subject will participate in all three tasks and during the experiment his or her EEG will be monitored. Performance for each subject during normal brain wave activity will be compared with that subject's performance during "subclinical" EGS. The comparisons will indicate (1) whether EGS are associated with deficits in alertness, selective attention, and/or focused attention, and (2) which tasks are most sensitive to disruptions associated with EGS and are potentially the most useful clinical task(s). Funding is being sought to conduct a pilot study.